


my bones wasted away; your hand was heavy on me

by arsonist



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: (i feel like that requires a warning), (so folks can avoid these themes if they want to), (some of these tags don't feature heavily im just being really cautious here), Blood, Canon-Typical Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Drowning, Forgiveness, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Self-Hatred, Simon is a goddamned mess, Suicide Attempt, Temporary Character Death, non-sexual nudity, pretentious bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-25 05:51:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2610791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arsonist/pseuds/arsonist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night after he dives in front of a bullet for Kieren, Simon dreams of thick rope, a noose around his neck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my bones wasted away; your hand was heavy on me

**Author's Note:**

> okay so im not. exactly sure how this happened?? i've never written anything like this in my life so i'm very surprised tbh. i know everyone and their grandmas has already written about kieren's reaction to simon's mission but this just sort of came to me when i was musing about the simon-judas parallels and i just went with it. i should warn that i know shit all about the bible, everything in this has been researched but, you know. i might have screwed up somewhere :/ i apologize in advance.
> 
> title adapted from [this](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2032:3-5).

The night after he dives in front of a bullet for Kieren, Simon dreams of thick rope, a noose around his neck, and he is Judas Iscariot but he can't die, not a second time. So instead he just hangs from the ceiling, broken neck bent at an unnatural angle, wide white eyes unblinking, feet dangling, swinging over a toppled chair; unable to atone for his sins.

A thousand undeath-bleached pinprick eyes watch him, watch his most recent failure, the air heavy and electric in the wake of his betrayal.

Kieren is not present at all, and that is what frightens him most.

 

\---

 

He awakens slowly into a kind of sleep-limbo, blinking in bleary confusion as if the dream still hadn't quite dissolved itself around him. When his eyes adjust to darkness and to alertness and he finds himself in his bedroom at the bungalow, no rope around his neck, he twists around to face Kieren, who still sleeps unmoving at his side, exhaustion and grief and anger and relief a heavy blanket weighing him like gravity into slumber.

Simon silently, solemnly watches his face for a moment, until he can't bear to anymore; he turns around again but does not close his eyes.

 

\----

 

The night after Amy's burial and wake, Simon dreams he completes his mission. There’s no Gary, no Blue Oblivion, no Beating of the Bounds march nor undead followers in their burial clothes. There is only Kieren alone, and he finds him easily and without much searching.

The first words his downturned mouth forms upon seeing Simon are a scarlet-angry demand, _where have you been_ , _why did you disappear like that_ , _I was worried about you_. Simon does not answer, only embraces this beautiful, incredible boy (his mark) wordlessly, and Kieren lets him. Simon kisses his cheek gently as his grip around the bone saw tightens like vice, and then suddenly it's not anymore in his hand but sunk deep into the back of Kieren's skull, a trickle of blackness seeping and escaping around the blade, thick and lifeless, dripping against Simon's hand cradling Kieren’s head. They fall to their knees together. Kieren makes not a sound.

In his arms, Kieren quickly morphs into Amy, and the blackness is now a vicious, guilty red and it's gushing, never-ending, but she is also silent.

Simon is alone.

 

\---

 

This time he awakes with a start, surfacing from the depths of sleep with the gasp of a drowning man, his body violently convulsing forward as if in a car crash, and he trembles and curls inward, dry-sobbing and heaving for breath he doesn't have need for anymore. His futile hands cover his ears and his eyes scrunch shut uselessly. Kieren is awake this time, worry twisting his features in the early morning half-light.

"Simon...?" Kieren reaches out to touch his shoulder but Simon recoils with a whimper, not instantly (he needs to be held _please touch me I need please_ ) but quickly enough for Kieren not to try again so soon. Simon's guilt is too great and too filthy for such immaculate hands. He doesn't want to soil him any more than he already has.

“Simon, Simon, can you hear me?” Kieren tries, “It’s okay, you’re okay, just-- just breathe with me, here. In, out, in, out, that’s it, you’re fine, you’re okay...”

Kieren doesn’t stop murmuring to him and slowly, Simon begins to calm down, his breathing evening out somewhat, his shaking hands uncovering his ears but never quite stilling. He blinks a few times, and with eyes glazed and downcast he eventually mumbles a weary "I'm sorry" into the pillowcase.

Kieren frowns. “What for? You don't have to apologize for this.”

Simon shakes his head, unsteady. "Not this. Everything. I'm sorry about the Blue Oblivion. I’m-- I'm sorry about Amy. I'm sorry about--" his body starts to tremble again, unquiet fingers moving rapidly in the space between them. Kieren tentatively reaches out for his left hand and weaves their fingers together. Simon by a fraction doesn't pull away this time. He’s too weak.

“Hey. Hey, Simon, look at me.”

He does, slowly, bone-colored eyes skittish. Kieren's equally milk-white eyes bore into his, steady. Behind him, the first sunlight of the day cross-stitches a halo around his head.

“None of that was your fault. Gary forced the Blue Oblivion on me. Maxine Martin killed Amy. None of that was you.”

Simon's fingers curl around Kieren's the same way his face curls into a pained expression, his gaze no longer capable of holding Kieren's.

"I was going to-- I was supposed to..." he pauses with a shaky breath, swallows. His accent is thick. "The Prophet had told me to kill you."

In that flat half-second, Kieren's demeanor shifts from concern and reassurance to pure blank confusion, overlaid with a hint of suspicion. He lets go of Simon's hand, not unkindly.

"...What? Simon, what are you saying."

Simon swallows in vain and keeps his gaze low, unblinking. “I... I came to Roarton with Amy with a mission. I was to find the First Risen. I wasn't told what for, but I'd assumed-- I had thought they'd-- I didn't _know_. All I knew was I was to find them, whoever they were, and report back.” He finally looks up then, “and it was you, Kieren.”

Kieren seems more confused by the second. “Me? How could you know _that_?”

Simon's face is blank, the question taking him by surprise. "You told us, when you told your Rising story."

“That... You mean with Gary and Jem and my parents? Simon, that wasn't real, that was me scaring the shit out of them because of how they were treating us. I wasn't alone when I rose.”

 _No_. Simon's eyes widen and he starts to shake once again, horror slowly descending on his face like a curtain of dread, transparent and lead-heavy.

"You mean-- You mean, I could've--" His restless fingers twist and his redundant breathing picks up erratic speed again. Kieren presses a palm to his arm to steady him once more.

"Hey, hey no, Simon, hey--"

"I didn't-- I never told them it was you but I was called into the city and he had a message for me and I was given these knives and I--" he rambles in one breath, "I was to sacrifice the First so there could be a Second Rising and I almost did, Kieren. I almost killed you--"

"You didn't though," Kieren interrupts, says around a small tight lipped, mirthless smile. "You saved my life instead."

Simon swallows thickly and starts to shake his head. Kieren just isn't getting it. "That’s not--"

"Is this why Amy was killed? Because Maxine thought she was the First?"

Simon silently nods, pressing his lips tightly together so they won't visibly tremble. Kieren's weight then suddenly lifts from the bed, and instead of tracking his movements with his eyes (no point, there’s no doubt in his mind Kieren's leaving) Simon curls more tightly inward until he's almost fetal, the expected rejection, verdict and punishment looming over him like certain fate, a guillotine blade.

Instead, there is a kind hand on his shoulder, and Kieren's voice asking softly from behind him, "can you stand?"

This takes Simon so completely off guard he can only blink, unable to readjust his script to this extreme detour, until he finally unscrambles meaning from Kieren’s words and mumbles a vague "yeah", and tries to sit up. His arms tremble to support him. Kieren notices this.

"It's okay if you can't--"

"No, I can."

He stands on weak feet and wobbly knees, but he stands nonetheless; his grey-white marble-like bare skin a stark contrast against the dark floor.

Kieren takes his hand, but it's not a completely warm gesture; it's cautious (something that should be dead twists in Simon's chest at the thought). He pulls him along into the hallway, and Simon can only blindly follow.

They reach the bathroom, and Simon is still trying to recalculate the route this has taken and _what are they doing here_ and all he can do is stand dumbly in the middle of the small room, stunned and unspeaking. Kieren undresses him matter-of-factly, and then himself, and Simon still can't speak, neither to protest or question it. Kieren then gently pushes him towards the shower, and Simon goes.

The water is a welcome pressure on his head and shoulders, and Simon can't quite process that this, after what he just confessed, is something he is allowed or even generously granted. This, Kieren washing him with a serious, thoughtful expression on his face, and there is nothing sexual about this but it seems enormous somehow, too big for Simon's dusted ribcage to comfortably contain or fully comprehend.

While Kieren lathers his hair in shampoo, Simon thinks of baptism, of the washing away of one's sins, of acceptance into grace, and desperately wants to cry. He wonders if Kieren is being intentionally symbolic (he doubts it, Kieren has never been a fan of religious imagery; this is more likely a familiar comfort Kieren knows, a relief for anxious muddled thoughts and simultaneously a space to think clearly, cleanly). Kieren washes his face, his fingers, turns him around to rub carefully around the wide-dark grisly rift on his back where his body doesn't bother to hide its inner softness anymore, and still he can't bear to entertain the thought that this, this is what he receives. He can never deserve it, but it overwhelms him all the same.

Kieren pulls him out of his thoughts when he hands him the sponge, asking if he can finish washing himself, the parts he didn't touch (his groin, his legs) so he could wash himself as well. Simon just nods wordlessly and accepts the bubble-foam and soap soaked sponge from Kieren's pale hand.

After they finish washing themselves Kieren twists the faucet interrupting the water-flow, and leads Simon out of the tiny shower. He wraps a towel around Simon's shoulders and Simon feels so small, so humbled that he doesn't know what to do with himself. Kieren dries Simon's face with one corner of the towel with soft fingers and soft eyes.

"I forgive you," he says after a moment of this. Simon doesn't respond, so he continues in an even tone. "I'm not really sure I can trust you just yet, but I forgive you."

Simon presses his lips together nervously, trying to stop himself from saying what he knows he'll say next. He knows he's not worthy of this, but he wants it so much and he can't ruin it, not this too. He swallows, but the words don't follow. He fails in the end; the dam of his lips breaks all the same, his voice cracking along with it.

"I almost killed you."

"I know. But instead you saved me. Things aren't always black and white, you know."

Kieren finally lowers the hand holding the corner of the towel and eyes Simon's slightly hunched form for a moment, then gently pulls him into his arms with a sigh, a respite from the careful distance he'd been keeping. Simon hides his face against Kieren's shoulder like a child, shuts his eyes, whispers _I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry_ over and over, until Kieren lifts a hand to his nape and whispers back, _I know_. Simon quiets then for a moment, but he lets out a broken and muffled "how can I...?" that makes Kieren frown. He knows what Simon is asking; how many Hail Mary’s, how many lash-strokes to his back as penance.

"Just promise me you won't do anything like this again. You're officially off the ULA, yeah? You cut off all ties with them?"

At this Simon reluctantly disentangles himself from Kieren's arms, gaze low and tone grave. "Yes. I'm a traitor to them now."

Kieren huffs in nervous laughter, brows knit with worry. "Well that's not concerning at all," he jokes.

"I won't let them near you," Simon raises determined eyes to Kieren's face, but Kieren just squints like Simon's speaking in tongues, the way he does when he thinks Simon's being absurd.

"That's not what I meant. It's not me I'm worried about, Simon," he shakes his head, considering. "What you said before, did you mean it when you said it was dangerous? Do you really think we should leave?"

Simon, although blindsided by Kieren's concern for his safety, doesn't hesitate. “Yes. But you've made the decision to stay, and I respect that. I want to stay with you."

The small but meaningful smile that graces Kieren's mouth and makes tiny creases on the corners of his eyes form is how he knows he's been blessed, Simon thinks.

"I want you to stay with me too."

 

\---

 

The night after he confesses his sins to Kieren, Simon dreams of the shower, except he’s alone this time, and the water is quickly rising around him, filling up the tiny area cubic inch by cubic inch. He tries but he can’t open the door to drain the water, he can’t turn the faucets; he can only stand there, helpless, and wait, wait until the water reaches his knees then his abdomen then his chest then his neck, and a sharp panic rises with it.

It stops then, at his neck, but before he can even think of feeling relief there is a hand pressing his head down, down into the water he’d so narrowly escaped. He tries to fight it, tries to push back against it but there is no use, and he is fully submerged. He braces for the burn of liquid entering his airways, filling his lungs, but nothing comes. Simon slowly opens his eyes, breathes in experimentally, exhales. Nothing happens. Instead of the desperate agony of drowning, he’s surrounded by silence and stillness, and he strangely feels protected, peaceful, clean. There’s no trace of the panic he’d felt just then.

He looks up, and through the ripples of distortion the surface inevitably creates he can make out a figure looking down at him, the owner of the hand that had pushed him down before. He squints until he sees light ginger hair, and big pearl-pallid eyes. Simon's mouth twists in a smile. Kieren’s hand breaches the surface of the water again, this time to pull him back up.

Simon breathes in deeply, and takes his hand.


End file.
